There is another ancestor of mine, my mother's father's father, who became a Christian from a Hindu background way back in the mid-nineteenth century - Lala Chandu Lall (1834-1903) - and I researched the story of his life and times! He was born at a time when the Mughal emperor Akbar Shah II ruled over a disintegrating empire in Delhi. The British East India Company had wrested Delhi from the Marathas in the Battle of Delhi 1803 and installed the Mughal emperor who was only titular. When Bahadur Shah Zafar ascended the throne in 1837, his empire did not extend beyond Delhi's Red Fort!
Chandu Lall was a Khatri who came from Katra Neel in the heart of Chandni Chowk, Delhi. He grew up at a time when the Mughal empire was on the wane and the British East India Company's influence was rapidly increasing and was the dominant political and military power at that time. Bahadur Shah Zafar was a pensioner with the British East India Company and maintained a court that was courtesy the British! Not interested in governance, the Mughal emperor was a noted poet and a Sufi saint and his court was home to the famed Ghalib and Zauq. His syncretic philosophy was that both Hinduism and Muslim were of the same essence. The Hindus visited dargahs and could quote Hafiz and were fond of Persian poetry. The children of the administrative Kayasthas and Khatris castes studied under maulvis and attended the madrassas.
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| Chandni Chowk in 1858 |
Chandni Chowk was built by Emperor Shahjehan and designed by his daughter Jahanara in the 17th century. It runs through the middle of the walled city from the Lahore Gate of the Red Fort to the Fatehpuri Mosque on the west and was the grandest of the markets in India. Katra Neel was a rich neighbourhood and is now a large wholesale cloth market.
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| Katra Neel in the 21st Century |
Lala Chandu Lall grew up in Delhi where the British East India Company's Governor General Lord Dalhousie's Doctrine of Lapse annexed many princely states in India between 1848 and 1856. English education was being established by Macaulay, who also brought about the Indian Penal Code. Persian and Sanskrit were replaced by English. The Delhi College was originally the Madrassa Ghaziuddin Khan, named after the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb's general who started it in the 1690s. In 1792 it became the oriental college for literature, science and art situated near Paharganj outside the Ajmeri Gate. Through the influence of Macaulay, it was called the Anglo Arabic College in 1828 and became famous as the Delhi College. It was one of the first institutions in India to initiate instruction in modern science through the local language. It served as "an institution that mediated between eastern and western cultures and mentalities, and did so in the vernacular, contributing to the emergence of an Urdu-speaking and reading elite in North India, composed of individuals of all religious persuasions."
Lala Chandu Lall attended the Delhi College and was much influenced by Master Ramchander, the famous mathematician of Delhi College respected by the Indians and foreigners alike for his academic prowess and who had become a Christian in 1852. Even Dr. Chiman Lall, was an alumni of the Delhi College, who was Bahadur Shah Zafar's personal physician, had become a Christian, and who was killed during the 1857 riots, known by the British as Sepoy Mutiny but by Indians as the First War of Independence. In one of the reports of the Society of the Propogation of the Gospel (SPG) taken from the Yale Divinity School library, it states - "Large number of Musalmans and Hindoos are often present during our service in Church, they are attracted by the music, but frequently stay to the end and listen to the sermon." Lala Chandu Lall was one such person who was attracted to the glorious Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. As was the custom in those days, he was married at a young age to Sohini and they had one child Isa Charan.
After the public Baptism of Master Ramchander and Dr. Chiman Lall on 11 July 1852, the seeds of dissent were growing. There was a marked difference now from the secular ways of Bahadur Shah Zafar's court and resentment against the Gospel propogating Christians was rising. When the Bengal soldiers rebelled against the British East India Company army, they felt that their religion was being compromised and the British were deceiving them into becoming Christians by making them taste pork and beef lard said to have been used in the ammunition that they were supposed to use by putting the bullets to their mouth. The simmering emotions erupted and fuelled by rumour and slander, went right from Calcutta to Meerut, Lucknow and Delhi and then on to the north of India. Britishers - men, women and children were butchered mercilessly. Even in Bahadur Shah Zafar's court, Dr. Chiman Lall was murdered and Master Ramchander barely escaped as Christians were being hunted down. Bahadur Shah Zafar made a public declaration of siding with the rebel Indian soldiers and when the Britishers were finally able to control the riots, being in their turn merciless to quell the emotions and killings, they exiled Bahadur Shah Zafar to Rangoon thus making a formal end to the travesty that was once the mighty Mughal empire. The other casualty of the 1857 riots was the British East India Company as the British Crown took over and the governor general was now the Viceroy representing Queen Victoria who was later announced as the Empress of India.
In such an atmosphere Lala Chandu Lall took his baptism as is mentioned in the Mission Life Vol.III in the chapter, 'Work Amongst the Educated Classes at Delhi' by C.J. Crowfoot -
"Lala Rám Chandra and Dr. Chimmum Láll, an account
of whose baptism was given in my last paper, belonged to this
class; and the chain of converts commenced by them, although
it is but a thin one, has continued unbroken. In 1859 Tara Chand
and Chandu Láll, who had both been pupils in the first
class of the Government College, were baptized. They have both
continued to live in Delhi since their baptism, and the high
consistency of their lives has been at all times the greatest
support to the Missionaries, and the best pledge of future success.
Tara Chand has been working for many years as an ordained Missionary
in Delhi, and Chandu Láll holds an important post in the
Commissioner's office."
Lala Chandu Lall and his wife were involved in ministering to new believers in Delhi as C.J. Crowfoot mentioned in his letters -
"Sunday, Oct. 4th, Delhi.- Today
J., the young Brahman, who is mentioned in Tara Chand's letter,
has signified his wish to come to be baptized in church; and
the baptism is to take place during this evening's service. It
has, I hope, been kept a secret; for we are afraid that [294/295]
his relatives, if they hear of it, may resort to any means, violent
or other, to prevent his baptism from taking place. I trust that
strength will be given him to-day to face the ordeal through
which he will have to pass. It is really no slight one. After
his baptism he is to live for some while with Chandu Láll........"
"St. Stephen's Mission, Delhi, Friday,
Oct. 16th.- Last Sunday-week J., about whom I once
sent you a letter from Tara Chand, was baptized. Tara Chand performed
the ceremony; Chandu Láll and his wife and myself were
witnesses. He had kept his intention secret from his relatives,
so that there was not a larger number of heathen present than
there usually is at our evening service. Afterwards, in the evening,
he dined with Chandu Láll, thus hopelessly breaking his
caste. He was a Brahman of very high caste........."
"April 26th, 1869.--I am going to a meeting
of the Delhi Society. This is a Society composed of some of the
leading gentry amongst the natives, and some of the English residents--the
Commissioner always taking the chair. Meetings are held at which
essays are read, debates [298/299] are carried on, and a news-room
and a library is attached to the debating-room. This evening
Tara Chand is to give us a lecture on 'Socrates.' Hitherto the
society has not done much good, most of its members being respectable
old gentlemen who come to pay their salaams to the Commissioner;
but now many young educated men are joining. Chandu Láll
is secretary--rather a remarkable fact, showing that when a really
good man becomes a Christian he does not necessarily lose respect
in the eyes of his countrymen, however much he may lose caste...."
"April 26th, 1871 -" ......So when, twenty
years ago, Rám Chandra and Dr. Chimmum Láll were
baptized, there was a general movement; so again, when Tara Chand
and Chandu Láll became Christians, four or five others
were expected to follow their example. And so it was two years
ago. Still, I hope that one is right in regarding these movements
as the ebb and flow of a tide of feeling which, though slowly,
is yet surely advancing...."
We know from these records that Lala Chandu Lall became a Christian as a matter of deep conviction, because he withstood the resentment against Christians at this time. His wife Sohini had died and he remarried, this time to Emily Abel, the daughter of a British army chaplain. Lala Chandu Lall made the decision to leave Delhi and relocate to Lahore in Punjab. In the Yale Divinity School library SPG report published in 1871 it says that "Our school has sustained another heavy loss, Lala Chandu Lal, who has for the last year been acting as head master and for the last eight years has been working in the School, has left it. This however is a loss which though we regret it much for the immediate interests of the School, we do not regret when we look at the wider interests of the Mission; Lala Chandu Lal now holds an important post in a Government Office, his influence will henceforth be exerted in a sphere quite independent of the Mission; this we consider a great gain." Lala Chandu Lall had been involved with the St. Stephen's School which later became the prominent St. Stephen's College of Delhi University. Family sources say that Lala Chandu Lall joined the Government Education Department in Lahore and there was involved with the starting of the Rang Mahal School which later became the renowned Forman Christian College. He was an educationist and a disciplinarian even though he was a loving father to his children and all his children did exceedingly well for themselves.
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| An old picture of Lala Chandu Lall taken in the late 19th century at Lahore, Punjab |
With Emily, Lala Chandu Lall had thirteen children - 1) Mohini b1865; 2) Prem b1867; 3) Bertie b1869; 4) Pati b1871; 5) Pyarelal (Pare) b1873; 6) Dayavati b1875; 7) Shanti b1877; 8) Sadanand b1879; 9) Grace b1881; 10) Samuel b1883; 11) Benjamin b1885; 12) Mary b1889; 13) Luther b1891.
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| Lala Chandu Lall and his wife Emily at the marriage of their eldest daughter Mohini to Rai Bahadur Mayadass of Ferozepur |
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Lala Chandu Lall was very nationalist minded and continued his Indian lifestyle till the end of his days. His children were very British in their outlook and way of life, being influenced by Emily their mother. Family sources says that Emily's father, the Rev. Ralph Abel was an army chaplain, of Jewish ethnicity, a Protestant reverend of the Anglican church and a British national. He lies buried in the Holy Trinity church in Lahore.
Soon after the birth of their youngest child Luther in 1891, Emily passed away and Lala Chandu Lall was a widower once more. He continued to be involved with Christian activity in Lahore. It had been a fresh start for him at Lahore and he had cut connection with his extended family in Delhi because he was hurt that they accused him of taking money from the British to renounce Hinduism. He mentioned it in the Punjab Christian Conference held in Lahore at that time. This accusation still continues till today when people cannot understand why a Hindu or a Muslim can, of their own free will, start believing in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God, Who came in the flesh, died, was buried and on the third day He rose again and is alive forever. Even now Indians think that Jesus is a foreigner and are willing to add Him into their pantheon as long as they don't have to believe He is the Only Diety. He stated it Himself in John 14:6 - "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no man comes to the Father, but by Me."
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| Government House, Lahore, 1857 |
In Lahore, Lala Chandu Lall established himself. Lahore had been the capital city of the Sikh empire under Maharaja Ranjit Singh till 1849 and by 1857 it was under the British Raj and the capital city of the Punjab. It was the culture centre of the Indian subcontinent extending from the eastern banks of the Indus river all the way to Delhi.
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| Lahore Market, 1857 |
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| Anarkali, Lahore |
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| The Hazuri Bagh, Lahore 1857 |
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| Shalimar Gardens, Lahore 1857 |
Lala Chandu Lall was my great grandfather and his eleventh child Benjamin was my mother Shuniela's father. He lived in exciting times and had the courage of his convictions and rebelled against the caste and inequality of his times believing that God has created all mankind as equal, it is man who has made them unequal. That was his mutiny!
